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<title>Worms and the Fathers That Kill Them by StrangeBirdie</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27356044">Worms and the Fathers That Kill Them</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrangeBirdie/pseuds/StrangeBirdie'>StrangeBirdie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Eurydice - Fandom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Attempt at Humor, Family Fluff, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff, Mild Horror, Sarah Ruhl, a worm gets eaten in a way described in a little too much detail, string as a metaphor for love, to be in any way comfortable</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 02:27:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,187</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27356044</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrangeBirdie/pseuds/StrangeBirdie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Eurydice hadn't remembered Orpheus in the play by Sarah Ruhl?</p><p>The result is better than you think.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eurydice and Her Father, Eurydice and The Child</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Worms and the Fathers That Kill Them</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eurydice did not remember how she died, and when she tried, all she got was the sensation of falling. It was like a pit in her stomach, and very bitterly she thought, <i>Like a stone.</i></p><p>After a while (she did not know, exactly, how long that was), she decided that she did not want to remember how she died. It couldn’t have been overall pleasant, and she was content enough to spend her days (hours? years?) by her father’s side as he told her stories and read to her. She was glad she remembered what it was to be content. She did not remember a lot of emotions. She once asked her father about it.</p><p>“Father?” she asked.</p><p>He smiled at her wearily, for questions weren’t always a good and easy thing when it came to his daughter, “What is it, Eurydice?”</p><p>“What is love?”</p><p>He froze. He had almost forgotten that she could not identify every emotion or word she came across. <i>Don’t forget</i>, he reminded himself, <i>Never forget.</i></p><p>Instead of answering her, he asked, “What do you think it is? What do you think it reminds you of? Every word is alive inside of you, and they all have meanings, even if you don’t know them yet.”</p><p>She shook her head, “I don’t know what love means, that’s why I asked you.” But then she thought for a moment, and spoke again, only more slowly, “It reminds me of . . . a tree? No, that’s not right.”</p><p>And then, “I got it!” Eurydice giggled, spreading her arms wide and spinning around in the room, “It reminds me of string!”</p><p>Her father laughed with her for a long time. And they laughed and laughed and laughed until they were out of air, even though there was none and they didn’t need it.</p><p>“You know what else love reminds me of?” asked Eurydice.</p><p>“What else?”</p><p>Her grin stretched across her face, “It reminds me of you.”</p><p>He smiled right back at her, a bit softer, “It reminds me of you, too.” It was the first emotion he’d felt, back at the Beginning. Back before he could really remember anything, he’d thought of each letter of Eurydice’s name and he felt love. And after love came every other emotion.</p><p>Later on, when Eurydice was learning to read some more and her father was reading to her, she gave him an odd look and said, “You could have been a writer, I think. You have a knack for stories.”</p><p>“I am only reading to you. Reading and writing are two very different things.”</p><p>“No,” she shook her head, “They are not so different. And you have a way with words, even the words I still don’t know yet. It makes me think of things. Do you ever think of things?”</p><p>	“Well,” he pursed his lips, “Yes, I think of things all the time.”</p><p>	“See? So you must be a writer.”</p><p>	“Well, that’s no good to me now, is it? I can’t write anything here, and there would be nobody to read it.”</p><p>	“That’s nonsense,” said Eurydice, “You could read it to me. Here, let me get you a pen and paper . . .”</p><p>	He almost told her that there was no pen and paper before she took a length of string and began to weave it into existence. Her weaving was clumsy, and the string got a bit tangled, but she began to get better at it after a while and in the end held the stack of paper and the pen up to him proudly.</p><p>	After that he shut his gaping mouth and got to writing.</p><p> He didn’t want to disappoint his daughter, after all.</p><p>---</p><p>Eurydice shot out of her string bed, something like bile rising to her throat. When she finally looked around the room, she saw not her father, but a child. A child who had a half melted ice cream cone in his hand and was watching her with a grin on his face.</p><p>“Good morning,” greeted the child, “Nightmare?”</p><p>Eurydice shivered. She wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or from the glint in the boy’s eyes. “Yes,” she said, “I had a nightmare.”</p><p>“What was it about?”</p><p>He seemed genuinely curious, so she decided to humor him. Truth be told, she remembered not a thing about it that had made her so scared. She could just feel it, like an itch beneath the skin.</p><p>“I had a dream that millions of itty bitty spiders were crawling all over my face and that they started crawling into my nose and mouth. It was very scary. Are you afraid of spiders?”</p><p>“I’m not afraid of anything,” he puffed out his chest, “And I know you’re lying to me. You didn’t dream of spiders at all!”</p><p>“Oh?” Eurydice stiffened at his knowing look, “What did I dream of, then?”</p><p>The child leaned in close, standing on his tiptoes. So close she could smell the decay on his breath.</p><p>“Worms,” he whispered. Then he opened his mouth, and with the hand that was free of ice cream, he reached into it and pulled out a fat and wriggling earth worm. He paused dramatically, enjoying its struggling, before taking a juicy bite of the thing right next to her ear and gnashing his teeth together to chew it.</p><p>He smacked his mouth, “I was saving that for later, but then I got hungry. Want some?” The worm was still writhing between his fingers. She shook her head quickly. He ignored her silent revulsion in favor of picking the dirt between his teeth.</p><p>Her father came back to find her staring into nothing, an expression of horror written upon her face.</p><p>“What happened?” he asked.</p><p>“Where were you?”</p><p>He paused, “I was writing a story for you. I wanted to surprise you. It’s not quite finished, yet, but I’m getting there. Thank you for the pen and paper.”</p><p>She smiled weakly, “You’re welcome.”</p><p>“So, any reason you look ready to throw up right about now?”</p><p>She shuddered, speaking in a shaking voice, “Worms . . .”</p><p>“Worms?”</p><p>“Worms.”</p><p>“. . . Why worms?”</p><p>“<i>Worms!</i>”</p><p>In the end, her father resolved never to mention the slimy creatures again. Despite this, he still caught her muttering under her breath about them from time to time.</p><p>Her behavior only grew stranger after that. When she heard him mention once how much he missed ice cream, she’d whipped around and hissed, “No ice cream, either. No worms, and no ice cream. <i>Got it</i>?” He didn’t get it, though he pretended to. He would do anything for her if only it made her happy.</p><p>He was also a little scared of her. Only a little. Eurydice, meanwhile, had nightmares about earthworms for a long time after that. She didn’t leave her room without first having her father search the vicinity for them.</p><p>It grew so bad that her father decided to make her a songbird out of string who would eat them all. He debated with himself about what kind of bird to make, but eventually settled on a pretty yellow canary. One that was the color of his memories of the sun.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I wrote this as an assignment for school. We had to rewrite the ending of <i>Eurydice</i> by Sarah Ruhl. I liked it enough that I decided to post it.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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